


of growing gardens and the serpents that scare them

by aeyria



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Fluff and Humor, Kedreeva's Wiggleverse, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, No beta we fall like Crowley, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Canon, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), does it count as kid fic if the kids are snakes and so is one of the parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23489926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeyria/pseuds/aeyria
Summary: There was talk in the Ace Omens discord of the snabies doing the "three kids in a trenchcoat" thing with a modified sock, and then uh, this happened. (readKedreeva'sGetting a Wiggle Onfor an explanation of the AU)The snabies get a new costume and use it to terrorize both their parents and the plants. Meanwhile, Aziraphale drinks some tea and reflects on the life that he now gets to live. There's still a long ways to go, but they're growing.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 140
Collections: Wiggleverse





	of growing gardens and the serpents that scare them

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick post of a mini dialogue thing I wrote on a whim, and then I decided to clean it up and it became a whole thing. Yeet. Also I didn't feel like coming up with names so all the snabies except Anthony Jr. are referred to super generally; Aziraphale refers to them as the children, while Crowley calls them the kids / spawn. 
> 
> Thank you to [Amihan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind) and the other lovely people of the Snabies Fambly for the conversation that inspired this. I'm so sorry it took five days to post this.
> 
> (seriously this should have been like 250 words max, wtf)

There’s a snake in the cottage. 

Not that a snake being in the cottage is anything unusual, of course; in and of itself, it’s a fairly common occurrence. After all, Aziraphale happens to be the partner of a part time snake, and since the two of them brought five (mostly) full time snakes into their care and being, well, it’s more of a surprise when there isn’t a snake in the cottage. No, the matter of intrigue is the fact that this snake is rather… different than the usual serpents seen slithering about.

Aziraphale looks up from his book - he is sitting in his rocking chair, perfectly positioned amidst the clutter of the cozy living room in order to take full advantage of the sunlight streaming through the open window - just in time to see a conspicuous squiggle of shadow detach itself from shade of the stairs. He can hear muffled giggles as it passes, wriggling with perhaps less coordination than one might expect of a singularly made creature as it follows the wall leading into the kitchen. He stifles his own laugh and returns to the page he was on. 

It’s a handwritten book of poems, one that has never graced any other shelf than his, and never will grace any other shelf hereafter. He skims the lines again, letting the words sit and be savored on his silent tongue. 

A loud thud shatters the quiet. He sets the book aside.

The first thing Aziraphale sees when he enters the kitchen is a knocked over stool sitting in the middle of the floor. Dragged over from the island, he notes, but more importantly, it seems to have been used as a ladder by the snake. The snake that is now swinging precariously by its tail from the open door of the refrigerator. 

The drop to the ground is hardly enough to injure, but Aziraphale hurries over and gently scoops the soft creature’s head and neck into his hand. It’s only natural to worry. There are no injuries so far as he can tell, but he reaches into the creature’s mouth anyway, brushing along the neatly knit rows of soft wool until he feels the real snake’s head and gently teases it out of the fabric. 

When he is finished, he has a long, modified black sock in one hand, and a daisy chain of five little snakes in the the other. The snakes wiggle and hiss. Perfectly alright then. He smiles.

“Hello children,” Aziraphale says. “Having fun?”

Anthony Jr., head of the operation, pouts dramatically in response. 

It’s something Crowley loves to tease Aziraphale about, that little mannerism. As if the children’s inclination for theatrics is somehow _his_ doing. Last week he’d walked in to find Crowley gleefully turning them over one by one and watching them flip themselves back over to lay insistently belly-side up on the coffee table. Each child had opened their mouth to let their tongue dangle out, and he might have been alarmed were it not for the barely suppressed giggles coming from all parties. 

“Look angel!” the demon had crowed, gesturing at the antics. “They’re just like you!” Aziraphale had rolled his eyes at that and assured Crowley he had no idea what the demon was talking about. Now stubbornness on the other hand...

“Are scary!” Junior exclaims in protest. “We make big snake!” He hisses louder to prove his point and the rest of the sniblings join as best they can around the tail in their mouth. It’s terribly endearing.

“Yes dears,” he agrees, “very scary indeed.” It’s remarkable how easy it is to make children happy. He can feel them light up at his words, little bursts of pride and delight as they bask in the praise. They take after their father in that way, though the demon would be loathe to admit it. It’s something they’re working on. Together. The children in his hand wiggle, and in true Crowley fashion, Aziraphale can also feel their eagerness to continue this newfound game. He kisses each of their noses and slides them back into their sock. 

“Why don’t you go show Father how scary you are? I think he’s in the garden.” 

It’ll give them a new unsuspecting target to terrorize, which he senses is the goal. More importantly, however, it’ll give Aziraphale time to figure out new ways to child proof the kitchen. 

The children cheer and slither out. He shuts the door behind them. At least they hadn’t realized chicken nuggets needed to be frozen. 

Outside, he hears a startled yelp and laughs.

-

Crowley is only half paying attention when he hears the door open. 

He’s waist deep in the rose bushes at the far end of the garden, trying to coax an injured lapwing out from beneath the plants and failing spectacularly. Unfortunately for Crowley, the bird seems to have injured its wing, not its legs; it won’t fly like this, but it can run. 

(He’s been at this for three hours now. The bird can run just fine.)

(He thinks he may have finally found an animal that rivals the horse for creatures built to spite him. Right up there with the damned roomba.)

It wouldn’t be so hard if he weren’t trying to maneuver through the most luscious roses in all of Great Britain. Aziraphale had once drunkenly lamented to him about the loss of the rose’s aromatic nature - “Gone the way of the banana,” he’d practically sobbed - and Crowley had spent a very confused next morning trying to puzzle out why he’d written himself a note that just said “roses = bananas” with an underlined “FIX THIS” below it. He’d filed it away after he’d figured it out; his flat didn’t have the space, and, more importantly, there was an antichrist to deal with, but now that they’d saved the world and bought a cottage (together!), he’s returned to the project with gusto. 

The roses he grows in his garden are a cross between the best of the modern breeds and the seeds of long dead flowers kept from bouquets he’d bought over the decades and never had the courage to deliver. He’s still a few generations out before he can be happy with the balance of modern blooms and antique scent, but now, maybe in a few more years, he finally has faith he’ll be able to give them to his angel. It’s a day he looks forward to immensely.

All of that’s assuming, of course, that this damned bird doesn’t make him tear up the garden in its chase. (He wouldn’t of course, but the idea does cross his mind. How are there so many thorns.) Everything he has is focused on catching the bird, and so he really can’t be blamed for not noticing the serpent sneaking up on him sooner. 

If anything, he thinks, in the hysteria-bordered seconds after the adrenaline becomes obsolete, he should be commended for his quick reaction time. Because even though the lunge of the suddenly hissing shadow does make him jump a bit higher than he’d like, (and yeah, maybe his voice decides to jump another octave above that) he still manages to stop himself from the curse poised on his tongue once he realizes who he’s dealing with. He smells wool and kids and _safe_ , and so at the last minute he ditches his consonants and throws around the vowels and when the sound leaves his mouth, what comes out is, proudly, not a curse. Again, truly commendable. 

He catches his (granted unnecessary) breath and looks around for other thing he’s been trying to catch now that his attention has returned. He didn’t crush it, did he? He bends over to check, but before he can get close enough, there’s an explosion of feathers as a familiar, perfectly uninjured streak of brown rockets out of the bushes and darts over the fence. This time, he manages not to make any embarrassing noises. 

Lapwing. Right. Broken wing display. He must have gotten too close to its hatchlings. Speaking of...

He turns around to face the five-manned (snaked?) sock puppet that jumped out at him, taking in the ridiculous yellow buttons used for eyes and the thread of red yarn sticking out of its “mouth” like a tongue. It’s still poised as if to strike, albeit a bit lopsidedly. He gives a slow blink.

“Hello spawn.” There’s an immediate cry of indignation at that. 

“Not spawn!” comes a voice from within the sock. “Are cober! Hiss!” The sock puppet sways back and wobbles, accompanied by a chorus of variably intelligible hisses. Silly things. Crowley nods as if convinced.

“Of course, of course; my mistake.” He gives a little bow for flourish and hears a peal of muffled giggles. It’s no secret that the kids have inherited their father’s love for the dramatic, but it seems to Crowley that they got Aziraphale’s talent for it too. He thinks of the Bastille, of magic tricks and paintball shots, and drunken re-enactments of the angel’s favorite Shakespeare lines. (He does _not_ think of the plans for a particular heist, or schemes to take down phone lines, or window decals on a Bentley. He refuses to acknowledge that a little of it might be from him. Just maybe. A tiny bit. Really. It’s mostly the angel.) He looks around the garden as if formulating a plan.

“You know,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially, “I was just about to have a little talk with these plants; I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help? Big scary cobra like yourself. They’d never even consider dropping leaves if there were _two_ scary snakes yelling at them, would they?”

“Ooh, yes! Let us yell! We make plants much afear!” He can see the individual heads nodding eagerly in syncopated tandem. At least the kids got one good trait from him. Mischief is always better with a friend.

He grins widely, and feels fangs.

“Excellent,” he hisses. “Let’s get a wiggle on.”

-

The afternoon passes gently. It’s a blur of green and gold and black, and Aziraphale watches his family’s antics through the herb-filled garden window above the sink as he does some reading. The herbs are something Crowley’s been helping him grow, so that he always has fresh ingredients and doesn’t have to wait or go out to get them on those days that neither of them want to leave the house. They have a lot of little projects like that, now that they’re free and able to. Things just for them. For each other.

Aziraphale smiles, sipping at a cup of tea made with honey from the hive that the children persuaded them to get a few seasons back. Beekeeping, they’ve found, is surprisingly difficult, even for occult and ethereal beings. The honey that they’ve collected is not nearly as sweet as it should be, but Aziraphale can’t fault the insects for that one; flowers are more intelligent than people realize, and under stress, their nectar carries the same taste of acidic fear that their veins and bodies do. The flowers that Crowley keeps are all in quite a state.

Today however, the serpents in the garden are just playing. Crowley winds his way up and down the rows, showing the children how to scold and what to say, and the children copy him eagerly, unaware of how carefully their father has chosen their words.

Plants aren’t the only things still growing in the garden. 

The threats they yell have all the venom of a kitten batting at its mother. They’re over the top and giggly and ridiculous, and in place of the pain that usually scores these tirades, Aziraphale can hear an underlying hymn of pride and love that forms a harmony with the hum of the bees going about their own work in the flowerbeds. It’s the most beautiful song in all of existence, Aziraphale thinks. _This_ is what they saved the world for.

Aziraphale knows that Crowley will later return to the garden to reprimand the plants properly. To keep them from thinking he’s gone soft, he’ll claim, and Aziraphale will nod and let him go, and try not to listen when the words start cutting a little too close to home. It hurts that he still does this. That he can’t do anything to help. But trauma takes time to heal, and all that anyone can do is let it happen and trust that things will get better. And they will. It won’t be easy, but Aziraphale knows they will. 

Crowley slithers back in. The children are perched atop him like parrots on pirate’s shoulder, and at least for now, everyone is happy and looking delightedly sun-warmed. Aziraphale brushes some dirt off of Crowley’s head and carefully gathers up the children. They’ll need a bath later, and their costume will need to be washed, but for now he sets them on the counter and pulls out a plate of grapes for everyone to snack on. (Aziraphale only ever serves grapes as midday snacks now; he had made the mistake once of serving them with dinner, and getting the children to go to bed after they discovered they could roll around on the fruits in their stomachs had been quite the difficult challenge.) He laughs now at the memory, and Crowley (now human-shaped) takes the opportunity to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek and draw the angel back to the present. 

Yes, Aziraphale thinks, returning the kiss, things will get better. And we will be here to see them. 

He takes another sip of honey laced tea and holds the promise on his tongue. Because even if angels don’t need to eat, Aziraphale is a being made to feel love, and with each new harvest, there’s a gradual shift in flavor that he knows is the love he’s watching his partner sow. They’re growing and healing, and with time, the bitter edges of mis-directed anger are slowly being replaced by a sweetness that tastes like home and sunshine.


End file.
